


Dissemble

by draculard



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Bill Tench's Broken Family, Christening that bare mattress from the finale, Comfort Sex, Divorce, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Brian Tench's....issues, Spoilers for Season Two, Top Holden Ford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 11:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20620463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: "Fuck me," Bill says.Somehow, it doesn't come out the way he meant it to. Instead of an oath, it sounds more like a request.





	Dissemble

“Bill.”

He pretends not to hear. His eyes are closed, his head between his knees, his hands squeezing against his temples so tightly he thinks he might crush his skull and send the contents flying.

“Bill,” says Holden again from the doorway, where he’s trying not to look or sound as nervous as he really is, “come on. At least put some sheets on the bed.”

“She took the sheets,” says Bill. His voice comes out thick and grating. It’s completely unfamiliar to him. Reluctantly, he removes one hand from his temple and puts it on the bare mattress beneath him. 

He keeps his eyes closed. If he opens them, he knows exactly what he’ll see  — the same thing he’s been seeing in his periphery for weeks now. The ghost of a toddler, brutalized and in pain, struggling to take one last breath. The hazy image of Brian standing next to boys taller and bigger than him, his eyes ringed with dark circles, his gaze fixed.

He almost doesn’t hear Holden crossing the room.

He almost doesn’t feel the hands on his shoulders, pushing him down.

“You’re dizzy,” says Holden with authority  — as if he has any way of knowing. “You need to lie down.”

“I’m fine,” says Bill. He lets his eyelids flit open just long enough to get a glimpse of the ceiling. Then he squeezes them closed again. “She left,” he says, though he’s certain that much is obvious. “She took the kid.”

Holden says nothing. He settles down next to Bill, his weight causing a slight dip in the mattress, his hip bumping against Bill’s thigh. 

_ Don’t, _ Bill thinks, covering his eyes  — and he doesn’t know if he’s talking to himself, telling himself to keep silent or not to cry, or if he’s projecting this thought to Holden, mentally begging him to stop before he does anything stupid, anything emotional or namby-pamby like he always does, anything —

“It’s okay,” says Holden, and he places a comforting hand on Bill’s shoulder, squeezing gently. 

Yeah, anything like that. Bill shrugs him off, but Holden puts his hand right back and squeezes again.

“It’s okay to be upset,” he says.

“Oh, Christ,” says Bill. “Lay off, would you? I’m fine.”

He can tell Holden’s affronted  — less by Bill’s tone and more by the implication that he’s misread the room. Bill can practically hear the quick, well-greased mechanics of Holden’s brain whirring as he tries to figure out what to say to crack Bill Tench open. To get him talking. To establish a rapport.

Holden opens his mouth, eyebrows furrowed, and Bill is willing to say or do anything to forestall whatever out comes next.

So he says, “Fuck me.”

And somehow, it doesn’t come out quite like he meant it to. The emphasis is all wrong. What was meant to be an expression of deepest frustration comes out sounding more like a request. Bill stops breathing for just a moment, his chest feeling almost like it’s encased in ice, his hands frozen over his eyes. He can’t hear Holden breathing, either, and he didn’t feel any sort of reaction, not even a minuscule twitch.

After a long moment, sounding more than a little uncertain, Holden says, “Okay.”

Stunned, Bill finally opens his eyes. He has to turn his head a little to see Holden, sitting on the edge of the bed with his legs primly crossed and his eyebrows drawn together in anxiety, in concern.

“I — ” Bill starts, his mouth suddenly dry. He shrugs off Holden’s hand again, and this time Holden doesn’t put it back. “I didn’t mean it.”

Holden, damnably, says nothing.

But he starts to undo the buttons on his shirt.

Sitting up, heart pounding a little too fast, Bill grabs Holden’s wrist and stops him, his fingers crushing Holden’s delicate bones but eliciting no reaction. “Stop,” says Bill. “I’m serious. I didn’t mean it.”

The words come out gravelly and level, giving away no hint of the emotion which is currently battering at him like a windstorm against closed shutters. Holden stares back at him, his eyes hooded, difficult to read.

“It’s alright,” he says, and his voice is just as level and reasonable as Bill’s. “You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

Bill starts to nod. Then Holden adds,

“You can just lie there. I’ll do all the work.”

Flummoxed, Bill can’t even begin to think of a response. Before he can get the words in order inside his head, Holden’s hand is on his chest, gently pushing him down on the mattress again. He feels himself following Holden’s lead, accepting his guidance like a puppy on a leash.

His head hits the bare mattress. He can feel a spring digging into his shoulder. He can see the spackled ceiling above him, a grey sky blotting out all other colors.

He can feel Holden’s hands on his fly.

_ This can’t be happening, _ Bill thinks, but the words sound far away and numb, like a thought that’s been placed in his head by some foreign agent for purposes unknown.

“Just close your eyes,” says Holden firmly. He has Bill’s trousers open now; his fingers brush against the outline of Bill’s cock through his underwear. He’s already half-hard, and he has no clue when that happened, or why.

He listens to Holden. He closes his eyes again.

“Think of Nancy if you want to,” says Holden, like it doesn’t particularly matter to him either way.

This piece of advice Bill dismisses without much thought. He doesn’t want to think of his family right now. Not Nancy, and certainly not Brian, certainly not the toddler they found in one of Nancy’s houses. He doesn’t want to think about any of it. That’s the whole point.

So when Holden skirts his fingers under the waistband of Bill’s boxers, when his calloused palm grazes Bill’s cock for the first time, Bill accepts it. 

It gives him something else to think about.


End file.
